Laparoscopic surgery has greatly reduced the size and scope of incisions made in a patient and resulted in reduced morbidity and mortality rates. However, even with the reductions in the size and extent of incisions as a result of laparoscopic surgery, complications in and during surgical procedures remain. A technique that is developing to further reduce surgical complications is to work through a natural orifice such as the mouth, to access the stomach, where a hole is made through the stomach wall, to gain access to the inside of the abdominal space outside of the stomach. This NOTES approach, or natural orifice transenteric surgery, allows scarless surgical procedures with faster recovery, fewer complications, and less pain.
Stomach tissue often needs surgical treatment to treat fistulas and to close trans-gastric incisions to stop stomach fluids from leaking from the stomach to surrounding tissue and to stop infectious matter from spreading from or to the stomach tissue. Other stomach treatments include stomach reduction procedures for obese patients. Traditionally, physicians have placed devices laparoscopically on the external surface of the gastric wall to create a restricted stomach capacity. Another traditional procedure for stomach reduction includes a laparoscopic procedure in which surgeons protrude into the abdomen from the exterior of the patient and staple the stomach into a smaller volume. This restriction creates a pouch inside the stomach which fills quickly when food is ingested and assists in generating a sensation of being full. However, these procedures have drawbacks such as complications from port punctures of the stomach, large incisions, substantial recovery time, expense, lost productive work time, infection, and the like. Further, the incision required by the current surgical procedures including laparoscopy, include a morbidity and mortality rate that can be reduced by reducing or eliminating the need for an incision by approaching the surgical site through endoluminal procedures.
Thus, there is a need for devices and methods which allow surgical procedures to be performed laparoscopically while reducing or eliminating the need for an incision.